Having faith

Having faith can be hard, especially during the hard times of life. No, I am not talking about Reeces Rainbow. Today I tell you of a story of having faith. Let me introduce to my friend Ashley, who blogs at Life According to the Christians Ashley is not only my friend in blog world but in real life as well. For you see I got to know Ashley, when their family moved here so her husband Josh could be the Youth Pastor at our church. I had the pleasure of getting to know her on/off when she volunteered with the youth ministry which at the time I was still in, but I truely got to know her when I graduated from Youth & she started a Ladies Bible Study at her house. (which I will be forever greatful for her starting it!) Anyway, If you want to hear their whole story about how they came to adopt twin girls go read their old blog posts. Right now one of their girls, Livy has been fighting for her life with a host of medical diagnoses, their family has faith in God that he can heal her & already prayers have proven that time & time again. How can they have that faith with all the unknowns? God wants us to have that faith cause he knows we need it. So can you do me a favor to pray for my little friend Olivia Faith? I have met her, held her, & loved on her before she got sick in the nursery. She has already endured so much for 18 months old. I was just reminded of her middle name & how God wants us to have that FAITH. Today as I was sitting for an hour praying for their family & Livy, I got my bible out & flipped it to my favorite verse Jeremiah 29:11 New International Version (NIV) 11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. As I was thinking I wish I had a picture of her (adoption is almost finalized!) so I could remember what she looked like before & have a visual picture to pray over, I remembered the picture of both girls with a note on the back that we got at the adoption shower so I rushed out to the garage to try to find it & I did. I took it back with me to my prayer spot & put my hands over the picture & prayed over it as it layed on my favorite verse in my bible.  Dear Livy, Thank you for reminding me that we need to have Faith in God! Josh & Ashley, I am in awe of your faith & passion to press on even when things get rough.
I will conclude with sharing the most reccent update on facebook (she has not had much time for blogging!)

1. Update: Livy developed ARDS Friday for yet unknown reasons. Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome is a life threatening lung condition. We were told yesterday her chance of survival was 50%. She started responding better this morning, however, hearing that the docs still wanted to get her prepped for ELCS (heart/lung bypass) was a bit of a downer. Since this morning Livy has shown some good signs o......f improvement. She's still got a long way to go before she's out of the woods, but she's on the right track. They have taken her off the paralytic and lowered her oscillator to see how she does. She's very heavily sedated and they aren't entirely sure how she's going to respond off of it. We've been learning more about ARDS and what we've learned is very scary. She's still critical and her outlook is still uncertain. With the improvements she's been showing, IMO, her chances have improved from the 50% they were yesterday but the docs haven't said what they are at this point. Tomorrow they are hoping to try and switch her to the other ventilator. We are hoping to hear results back from her blood cultures tomorrow evening which will hopefully shed more light on what's causing the ARDS. They are still taking it hour by hour and one step at a time. Thank you so much for your continued prayers, I truly believe God is honoring them. I'll keep the updates coming as we keep hearing more.

   
   

   I will occasionally post Olivia updates on here, but mostly do on my facebook but wanted to share with my non-fb friends to be praying. HAVING FAITH THAT GODS GOT THIS! My 2 favorite sayings together!